


fire up (let go)

by astralscrivener



Series: vld fic requests [9]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, Ambiguous/Open Ending, F/F, F/M, Hurt Keith (Voltron), M/M, Magic-Users, Multi, Protective Keith (Voltron), Protective Lance (Voltron), fic request, i want to write a full-fledged fic for this now, sorta - Freeform, too much worldbuilding for a oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-10-06 07:54:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17341532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astralscrivener/pseuds/astralscrivener
Summary: “Never go toe-to-toe with a Druid of the Komar.” A warning drilled into everyone as children, to be understood and heeded and never questioned. If a Druid of the Komar found you, just asingle druid,you were, essentially, fucked. You could try running and praying they didn’t come after you, but you never fought back. If you happened upon more than one Druid, you could kiss life goodbye.In which an encounter with a group of Druids has dire consequences for Keith.





	fire up (let go)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jahzmean](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jahzmean/gifts).



> hey so remember those 27 fic requests i had left to do after november?? yeah that's right i didn't forget they've just been sitting on my guilty guilty conscience for over a month
> 
> this is one of them
> 
> i'm not writing them in any particular order, since they were all requested within 24 hours of each other, it's mostly just as the inspiration strikes
> 
> so, jahzmean, this one's for u!! i didn't do the prompt word-for-word but i took the essence of it, i hope u enjoy it!!
> 
> lyrics sorta taken from i'm so sorry by imagine dragons :P

            Keith’s world spun.

            The scent of smoke filled his nostrils, his mouth—all he could taste and smell as the earth rushed up to meet him, burnt grass disintegrating into piles of ash as he went down. Bodies—bodies everywhere, and himself among them, one of the only two still left alive, though _alive_ seemed a funny and inapt description of his current state. His vision undulated in front of him, faded in and out of darkness. A voice called out his name— _I know that voice, I know it_ —

            “Keith! C’mon, nononono, stay awake here, you _moron_ , I told you not to _do that!_ ”

            The easy flip-flop between concern and scolding earned a cough from Keith, and a tiny bubble of laughter that popped in his mouth. Wheezing, gasping laughter, but laughter nonetheless. The voice groaned in exasperation, and hands found their way around Keith’s waist and back, pulled him up into someone’s lap. Cold—very, very cold, and they slid underneath his cloak, underneath his leather armor, underneath his shirt, pressed skin-to-skin. Second-nature, like those hands had done this a thousand times.

            “You should be…thanking me,” Keith muttered deliriously, and cracked a half-smile, eyelids fluttering as Lance wavered in and out of existence in front of him.

            “You’re playing the hero card, it really is worse than I thought,” Lance replied, frown lines deepening. “Okay, okay, uh… _shit_ , alright, I’m just gonna—nonononono, Keith, open your eyes—”

            Keith groaned, protests dying in the back of his throat as his eyes fell shut again. He nestled his head against Lance’s chest, tried to savor the feeling of being in his arms. It was comfortable here, cool and safe, so why did Lance sound so _worried?_

            “Okay, okay, this is fine, this is… _fuck,_ alright, alright, alright, okay, this is fine. I’m gonna keep talking, just…try and stay awake for me, Keith. Please.”

            Lance continued rambling, grunting as he presumably stood up, carefully balancing Keith in his arms. Then he started running—his feet pounded against the earth, and Keith jostled as Lance carried him. His train of thought spiraled, from moving from one sentiment to the next with no clear line of connection. He talked about powers, birds, what he imagined the royal palace to look like, spellbooks, his breakfast—anything to keep his brain busy and to keep Keith listening.

            “Keith, say something if you’re still with me,” he said at one point, and when Keith barely managed a whine, Lance’s heart sped up, whacked harder against his chest. The pounding should’ve been loud in Keith’s ear, but like everything else, it came and went, there one second and gone the next.

            “Shit, _shit._ KOSMO! _KOSMO!_ ”

            _You_ _’re cute when you’re concerned,_ the thought came to Keith in fragments, and none of them made it past his lips. He hummed, nothing more than a few seconds of rumbling from deep inside of him, as the threads of his consciousness began tearing, unraveling, snapping, with nothing to sew them back together. Not Lance, not his heartbeat, not the feel of his fingertips pressing hard enough to leave bruises behind, not his labored breathing, not his shouting.

            “You’re not dying on me,” Lance hissed through what Keith could only assume were grit teeth. “You hear me? Not today, Kogane!”

            His voice wobbled. Keith reached one weak hand up to where he guessed Lance’s cheek would be, fingertips grazing his skin before his senses failed him entirely.

* * *

            Lance found Kosmo precisely one minute and fifty-seven seconds after Keith stopped responding, smoke just barely still curling out of his nostrils. Kosmo wasted no time in sidling up to Lance, wrapping his tail around Lance’s leg and then poofing the trio back into their hideaway. It took longer than Lance would have liked—a whole ten seconds of feeling detached from this plane of reality, without Keith’s powers to bolster his wolf’s.

            Then he tripped and stumbled over his feet and nearly dropped Keith as they landed in the kitchen of their hideaway.

            Shiro shot up from his chair automatically, startled as all hell, but the fight rushed out of him as soon as he took in the sight of Keith, pale and hardly breathing and definitely not conscious. Across the table, Adam blanched, and then his chair, too, scraped loudly against the floor as he stood up and shoved it back.

            “What happened?” Adam demanded, as Lance moved into the living room and gently set him down on the couch, and Kosmo curled up at Keith’s feet. He squeezed Keith’s hand, grip bone-crushing, and swallowed back the lump in his throat, forced air through the terror squeezing his lungs.

            “I-I don’t…we were out scouting, a-and…” He screwed his eyes shut, inhaled.

            _“Never go toe-to-toe with a Druid of the Komar.” A warning drilled into everyone as children, to be understood and heeded and never questioned. If a Druid of the Komar found you, just a_ single druid, _you were, essentially, fucked. You could try running and praying they didn_ _’t come after you, but you never fought back. If you happened upon more than one Druid, you could kiss life goodbye._

            “Druids,” Lance breathed out. “There were…fuck, like, nine?”

            “You—there were— _what?!_ ”

            “You survived an encounter…with _nine Druids._ ”

            Adam and Shiro each tripped over their words, exchanging wide-eyed glances, and then Adam got moving, rushing out the door, while Shiro fell to his knees next to Keith, brushing the bangs on his forehead back. He felt his forehead with the back of his hand, wincing.

            “He pushed himself too far, he’s practically on fire…”

            “I’m trying my best here, but nothing’s taking.”

            Whatever dregs remained of Keith’s powers pushed and shoved against Lance’s, fought back with all their might. Usually, they worked _with_ Lance’s, let his water soothe the raging fires, douse the flames where it was needed. It was why _they_ worked, up to now.

            “He must still be in fight mode,” Shiro whispered. “It’s…it’s happened with Adam, a couple times. His powers are trying to protect him as best they can while he can’t protect himself.”

            “But if he doesn’t stop—”

            “I know, Lance, I know.”

            Several sets of feet thudded on wooden steps as the door to the room swung back open, and Adam returned, this time with the rest of the crew in tow—all of them. Allura shoved her way to the front of the group, knelt down between Shiro and Lance and laid hands upon Keith’s forehead and chest, shut her eyes without a word. Romelle hovered behind her, a steadying hand on her shoulder. She, too, shut her eyes, as a cyan glow filled the room.

            It started at Allura’s hands, Keith’s chest and forehead, and then traveled over both of their bodies, until the two of them radiated blue light. Allura uttered words under her breath, healing incantations she was still getting used to, incantations passed down among the Mages of Oriande, a tongue foreign to the rest of them. Lance gave up on trying to follow the words and focused on the feel of Keith’s hand in his, still limp and burning up.

            “Lance,” Romelle murmured, after several minutes had passed with nothing happening, except for Allura’s face scrunching in deeper concentration, “may we see what happened?”

            Lance painstakingly tore his gaze away from Keith to meet Romelle’s eyes, to take in the sight of her outstretched free hand. Where Allura could heal, and Lance controlled water, and Keith fire, Romelle had the ability to communicate with others telepathically, to visually reconstruct their thoughts for others to see. People like her often kept records, worked in libraries and administrative offices and the palace archives. They got their information directly from the source, documented it for all others to see and hear. They could pull on memories the owners themselves weren’t able to clearly recall, bring everything back into focus.

            “If it helps,” Lance answered after a heartbeat of hesitation.

            He stole one last glance at Keith’s pallid face and released his hand, while Romelle relinquished her grip on Allura’s shoulder. Shiro remained by Keith’s side, but turned to look as Romelle led the others a short distance away from the couch, to give Allura the space she needed to work. Lance knelt down before Romelle as the others formed a half-circle around them, tipped his head back, and Romelle placed hands on his forehead.

            Romelle rooting around in his head reminded Lance of the threads of a loom, being poked and prodded and pulled. Finally, Romelle seemed to find the right one and _yanked_ , and pain shot through Lance’s skull, there and gone in a flash. He winced slightly but ultimately didn’t move as a hazy orb appeared over his head, depicting a scene of the forest around them shortly before Keith incinerated it.

            _Lance pressed his back against Keith_ _’s, pointed the arrow nocked on his bow at the ground. Dry—it’d been dry for_ weeks, _leaving little to no moisture for Lance to pull on. He could try conjuring his own water, maybe, but he_ _’d leave that as a last resort. Better to try for defense with his bow before he drained the reserves of his magic. Behind him, Keith pulled two daggers, flames roaring to life along both blades, making them seem three times as long._

_Keith himself burned—heat flared at Lance_ _’s back. Flames flickered at the ends of Keith’s hair, on his fingers, at the toes of his boots and the bottom of the long cloak he wore. Where Lance concealed where his true power lay, Keith bared it—pyromancer, plain and simple._

_Let the world know before he fell._

_Because they_ would _fall. Lance_ _’s heart pounded in every inch of him, threatening a headache, as he stared at the nine Druids of the Komar circling them. All of them wore deep black robes, accented with maroon, and white masks concealed their faces, save for five slits that glowed yellow. Did they have two eyes, but such a strong glow that it seeped out elsewhere? Or did they have five eyes? Nobody knew—nobody’d ever ripped a Druid’s mask off and lived to tell the tale._

_And Lance severely doubted he would, either._

_He and Keith had already been out scouting for two hours with Kosmo, until Kosmo ran off. Keith hadn_ _’t been worried, had said Kosmo would come back in due time. As loyal as Keith’s wolf was, Lance doubted Kosmo would come back now—not when they were about to be_ killed.

_“Keith—” Lance started, voice high, but then the shitshow began._

_The druids worked in tandem. The air pressure changed, Keith and Lance_ _’s hair whipping out, away from the center of the circle, as the Druids charged up their powers. The flames on Keith’s blades guttered, and Lance felt the shift in Keith’s body, the shift in his demeanor as he growled, low in the back of his throat, and sheathed his blades in the scabbards at his waist._

_“Lance,” Keith said, and whipped around to face him, threw his cloak around Lance and dragged him in tight to his body, “I need you to trust me.”_

_“Keith—!”_

_A repetition of his name, but far more alarmed. Lance looked up while Keith looked down, and the rest of his words never made it out of his mouth, because he got stuck on Keith_ _’s eyes. His pupils had blown wide and swallowed almost all of the light from the fire around them._

_“Shut up and_ trust me! _”_

_“Keith—Keith, no!”_

_Lance knew exactly what Keith meant to do. He_ _’d tried it once before, years ago, when they were younger and none the wiser, and had ended up bedridden for two days before he could even_ think _about getting up and moving again. As far as Lance knew, Keith had never practiced this again, and was now about to try it in front of nine Druids of the Komar._

_The roar of fire drowned out all of Lance_ _’s protesting as he clung to Keith, clung to his robe, and called on his water as much as he could, called on it to form a bubble around himself, lest Keith turn him to ash, too—_

This is lasting too long.

            _It hadn_ _’t gone on like this the first time. Keith had wiped out after not even ten seconds, but_ now _—now he strained against the Druids_ _’ powers, presumably. Lance’s ears popped, popped again, pressure changing rapidly while Keith’s body began shaking._

_Screams tore from Keith_ _’s throat as he gave one last push, one last bursting blaze—and then more screaming went up around them, distorted, banshee-like. Lance didn’t dare let go of Keith to cover his ears; he pressed his face further into Keith’s chest, curled tighter against him and prayed that they both made it out of here._

_Finally, Keith_ _’s arms dropped, and the fire blew out. Lance released Keith, took in the sight of scorched earth and charred bodies—eight of them, eight bodies on the ground,_ where the fuck is the ninth?

            _No time for pondering. In the few seconds Lance had let him go, Keith hit the ground, the grass shooting up in puffs of ash and smoke._

_“Keith!”_

            “Eight,” Lance whispered as soon as Romelle removed her hands, and the projection of his memories vanished. He rose to shaking legs, and Romelle’s arm shot out to steady him. “Eight…one of them…”

            “Got away,” Allura said, and Lance looked sharply in her direction. “One of the Druids got away with his powers.”

            “What?” Shiro asked, voice quieter than Lance expected.

            Allura turned toward him, hard expression softening. “The Druid who got away must have taken his powers. Whatever you might have felt before was the last bit that clung to him, but they got used up, trying to fight off both whatever Lance was trying, plus my own healing. The taking of one’s powers…isn’t as straightforward as one would think.”

            Allura paced, back and forth in front of Keith and Shiro, in front of the rest of them. Adam rubbed a hand over the bottom of his face and sat back in one of the two armchairs in the room. Matt sat down in the other one, while Pidge took up a spot on its arm. Hunk and Shay stood between the two chairs, Hunk against the wall with hands massaging Shay’s shoulders in what must’ve been an attempt to soothe her, and the stricken look on her face.

            “Long ago, the Mages of Oriande rose up in opposition of the Druids of the Komar. One of your first tasks as a Mage is to study both of their histories, and what their magic can do. Druids of the Komar can steal powers, which is often fatal for those who have their powers stolen, because there must be a balance. The powers must be replaced with _something._ In the case of the Druids, they…”

            Allura glanced back at Keith again, pursed her lips.

            “They…?” Hunk asked.

            Allura shut her eyes and sighed. “They create a sort of tether, between themselves and their target. This tether _can_ be used to trace the Druid, but it’s dangerous work. The Druids often use this tether to…to…” Allura made a noise of frustration. “They…poison their targets. Usually, the poison acts so quickly—within a day or less—that their targets have no time to understand what’s happening to them. They die, the tether is severed, and the Druids keep the powers. There’s…there’s a rumor, neither proven nor disproven for generations, that the Druids have a reserve of all the powers they’ve stolen, that they’ve found a way to…physically manifest those powers to store them.”

            “What?” Adam asked. “This is—”

            “A lot, I know,” Allura said, opening her eyes, and clasped her hands in front of her. “There’s still so much more, but that’s the basics of it. Luckily, between Lance returning here so fast, and Romelle being able to call on the memory…I recognized that faction. The markings on their robes and the slits in their masks denote them. That one has been around for generations, and that was only a small fraction of their Druids. It’s headed by a woman once named Honerva, though her alias _now_ is unknown to us.”

            “Honerva? Like alchemist Honerva?” Pidge asked, leaning forward. “I’ve studied her work, and a lot of it just—ended out of nowhere.”

            “Precisely,” Allura answered. “That’s because someone claims she was once a Mage of Oriande, centuries ago. Specifically, a Mage claiming to be her son. If Romelle and I go now, we can return within a matter of hours, and see about helping Keith. For the time being…he should live, for now, although things will still be quite fragile.”

            “When you say he _should_ live…?” Lance asked, as Romelle slowly released his arm.

            Allura sucked in a breath through her teeth. “For at least the next twelve hours. This is a time-sensitive case, so Romelle and I should really be on our way.”

            “Don’t go alone,” Matt said, and stood up. “The more of us there are working on this, the faster we get things done, right?”

            Allura looked between Matt and Romelle. Romelle shrugged, and Allura sighed. “Fine. Matt, come with us. Pidge—” Allura paused, dug into the bag draped across her body, produced a book and thrust it at the smaller of the Holt siblings, “—don’t lose this. There should be herbal remedies under the section titled Komar. Get started.”

            “I can help,” Hunk offered, when Pidge raised panicked eyes to Allura. “Shay too. And Lance.”

            “But who—”

            “I’ll watch Keith,” Shiro interrupted. “Adam can help the four of you.”

            “We have to go,” Allura said. “We’ll be back as soon as possible.”

            With that, Allura grabbed Romelle’s hand and pulled her toward the door. Romelle fell into step behind her, and Matt followed suit.

            “C’mon, Lance, we’ve gotta go, too,” Pidge said, rising from her seat.

            She started for the exit, the door to the winding staircase that would take them to the lowest level of the hideaway, and then out into the world. Hunk and Shay followed her, Pidge wordlessly passing the book to Hunk, but Lance hesitated. He bit his lip and looked back at Keith, chest tightening.

            “…You guys go on ahead, I’ll catch up.”

            Pidge, Hunk, and Shay traded distressed looks, but then Lance turned his back on them as he returned to Keith’s side. Shiro stood up and grabbed Adam’s hand, led him away as the room cleared out, and left Lance and Keith alone. Lance knelt down next to Keith, used one hand to cup his face, took Keith’s hand with the other and held it against his chest. To his surprise, Keith moaned, a quiet thing, and his eyes opened, slit-like.

            “Lance…?”

            “Hey, hothead,” Lance greeted softly.

            “What…?”

            Keith cut himself off, frowning, eyes widening slightly as he tried to sit up. Lance removed the hand from his face and gently pushed him back down. Underneath his fingertips, he felt the beat of Keith’s heart ramp up, into a gallop.

            “Lance, I-I can’t—”

            “Keith—”

            “My powers, w-where…I can’t feel them…”

            Keith’s breaths came sharp and quick. Lance squeezed his hand, drew Keith’s eyes to his face. They glistened, glassy with the gathering of tears. Lance swallowed the lump in his throat as Keith’s terror rose.

            “Hey, hey, hey, easy, take it easy.”

            “Lance—”

            Keith’s voice cracked and he shut his mouth, teeth digging into his lower lip. Lance had imagined himself giving Keith a scolding—gentle, but a scolding nonetheless—for pulling the stunt he’d pulled back there, but if he hadn’t, they likely wouldn’t be sitting here at _all._ And Keith was shaking like a leaf, skin cooler than it should’ve been. It was still _warm_ —warmer than Lance’s, anyway—but not as hot as it usually was.

            “Do you remember what happened?” Lance whispered.

            Keith thought for a moment and then nodded. “The Druids…”

            “Yep, mhmm. You saved us,” Lance said, and pushed Keith’s bangs back again, pressed what he hoped was a reassuring kiss on his forehead, never once loosened the grip on his hand. “You killed eight of them. The ninth got away, and…they stole your powers. Allura’s looking into it, we’re going to get them back, okay?”

            He refrained from mentioning the poison running through him, refrained from mentioning the tether to whichever Druid cursed him like this. Keith already watched him with large eyes, already shook from head to toe, already returned Lance’s tight grip. Lance particularly liked having his hand in one piece, and didn’t really care to see Keith lose whatever last drops of nerve remained.

            “ _All of us_ are gonna help you,” Lance said. “I promise, and you know I don’t break my promises. I’ve gotta go, I’ve gotta help the others, but Shiro’s gonna stay here with you, okay? I’ll be back as soon as I can. In the meantime, you’re not allowed to die on me.”

            Lance’s hand slid to the back of Keith’s head, and he leaned in and pressed their foreheads together. Keith rested his other hand on the back of Lance’s neck, absently running fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck.

            “You saved me,” Lance said, voice much quieter, “and now I’m gonna save you.”

            Meanwhile, in the study, one of the doors down the hallway off of the living room, Shiro and Adam paid them no mind, caught up in their own worries.

            “Druids of the Komar, I _knew_ this would happen!”

            Shiro ran a finger over the top of a dozen books and several scrolls on his shelf, groaning in frustration. None of them were the right one, none of them were the one he _needed_ —

            “It’s this one, first of all,” Adam called from the shelf across the room, and Shiro turned just in time for Adam to toss a scroll in his direction. He snatched it out of the air and bent over a desk, unraveling the scroll and pinning it down with two of the knives he kept on his belt. “Second of all, are you _sure_ this has to do with your curse—?”

            Shiro looked up sharply, and Adam crossed his arms.

            “That’s the only reason I can think of, unless Keith and I just both have exceptionally bad luck when it comes to black magic.” Shiro dropped his eyes back to the paper in front of him. “No, no, it’s gotta be the curse…there’s no reason for the Druids to have shown up in this neck of the woods, they must have finally tracked me down somehow and found _them_ instead… _gods,_ this is all my fault…”

            “It’s _not_ your fault, Takashi,” Adam said with a sigh, and uncrossed his arms. He came up behind Shiro and instead draped one arm over his shoulder, rested his other hand on his hip as he glanced, too, at the scroll. “It’s that Druid’s fault for casting an Unbreakable.”

            “Unbreakable, right,” Shiro muttered. “Every curse has a way to be broken, it’s just my fault for not being able to figure out how to break my own!”

            “You’re getting worked up,” Adam remarked, and detached himself from Shiro, plucked the two daggers from the table, rolled up the scroll and stuffed it into the bag lying on the far end of the table. “Keith needs you right now, and even if it was your curse, there’s not much you can do about that. It’s already happened. Be there for Keith now, and when the team gets back together, we’ll see what we can do.”

            Adam cast a weary look at the door, and then back at Shiro. He leaned in and kissed Shiro’s temple, swiped the bag off the desk, and started out.

            “Lance and I need to catch up with the others.”

            “Take Kosmo with you,” Shiro called after him. “He…if something happens to Keith, he’ll know. He can bring you back.”

            “Will do.”

            Adam allowed himself one last glance back at Shiro, and then shut the door. He crept out into the hall, and poked his head into the living room, and found Keith and Lance silent, foreheads still together. Keith’s hand splayed out over Lance’s heart, and Lance held it firmly to his chest. Kosmo stretched out on the lower half of Keith’s body, head resting on Keith’s stomach, ears drooping.

            “Lance,” Adam called gently, and Lance stiffened, “we’ve gotta go. Kosmo—” and the wolf looked up, ears raised, “—you’re coming too.”

            Kosmo tilted his head, then looked at Keith and whined, tail slowly flicking. Keith peeled himself away from Lance and brought a hand behind Kosmo’s ear, scratched the wolf.

            “It’s gonna be okay, buddy,” Keith whispered, voice hoarse. “Keep ‘em safe.”

            He lifted his eyes back to Lance, who smiled at him wistfully. “You be careful out there.”

            Words strung themselves into a thousand different sentences in Lance’s head, varying from serious to as playful as the situation would allow, scolding and warmhearted, and none of them made it to his mouth as he leaned down and pressed it against Keith’s. This kiss lacked all of the fire of their previous ones— _Keith_ lacked all of his fire, and it was upon the group’s shoulders to get it back before the embers flickered out for good.

            “Stay alive for me,” Lance whispered when he pulled back, when he forced himself to let go of Keith.

            Kosmo jumped down from the couch after nuzzling Keith one last time, and sidled up to Adam and Lance, who each laid a hand on his head. Then they vanished from the room, leaving Keith alone. He settled himself into the couch and stared up at the ceiling, limbs feeling simultaneously leaden and birdlike, heavy and hollow. He blinked every few seconds as his eyes tried closing, but he’d be damned if he couldn’t stay awake this time.

            _Stay alive for me._

            Stay awake, just until the others got back—yeah, he could manage that.

**Author's Note:**

> 2 down...26 left to go
> 
> also ya like i said i really wanna write a full-fledged fic of this...like wow...but i already have the fix-it fic to write [lies on floor] THIS IS FINE
> 
> see y'all whenever
> 
> stan [stealing our own place in the sun](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15900732/chapters/37059441)  
> stan [deceit](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11297529/chapters/25276539) [so](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11473437/chapters/25727043) [natural](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11743020/chapters/26462739)


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